SEO Insights: Maximize Your Content Reach With Title Tag Optimization

Every online marketer knows that writing quality, engaging content is essential to increasing traffic to online websites. But, it’s always shocking how these marketers and publishers can invest so much time developing quality content without taking a few extra minutes to maximize the potential reach by making simple search engine optimization (SEO) considerations.

In this post we are going to focus on the most basic of page optimization practices, the Title Tag.

What is a Title Tag?

The title tag isn’t the title of the article or post; it’s the clickable text that is shown as the first line on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP’s). It resides within the header <head> tags on an article, and should always be customizable within popular CMS platforms. The title tag is only visible to the user at the very top of the browser’s tab, and offers a quick summary of the article’s purpose. Search engines basically view the title tag to quickly decipher the content of a page, before delving deeper into the meta description and content.

How to Optimize Title Tags for SEO

The key for title tag optimization is to follow best practices and write a short, unique and concise title tag that quickly gets the point across to readers what the article is about. Below are some key tips when developing title tags:

1. Make sure the title tag is under 65 characters with spaces. Sometimes the SERP’s will cut it off below 65 so stick with 60 if you want to be safe.

2. Ensure every single post or page on your site has a unique title tag. Yes, even the contact us and sitemap pages. EVERY page or post gets a unique title tag under 60/65 characters limits (with spaces).

3. Get your top keywords into the title tag in a clear, easy to understand format. Don’t stuff keywords, but each post should be targeting a main keyword and that keyword needs to be prominently placed within the title tag.

There’s nothing worse than having a really long, spammy looking title tag. First off, the SERP’s cut off anything after the character limit so you are really doing yourself a disservice by stuffing in as many keywords as possible. Secondly, it leads to lower click through rates since you aren’t doing a good job of promoting your content online. Avoid useless words like “the” or “and”. Instead, use "&" to save a couple character spaces. Avoid using the template title tag and focus on making sure every page or article on your site has a unique title tag. Always remember when looking for optimization tips to check out what the top ranking competition has done and expand from there.

Paul Teitelman is an SEO expert and freelance consultant specializing in
offering honest, ethical and transparent SEO and link building
services.You can check out his website HERE or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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